Mon February 13, 2012

3 Biting Books For Those Bitter On Valentine's Day

For those who find themselves alone this Valentine's Day, or who reject the holiday altogether, you might not want to read about star-crossed lovers pining for each other and — even worse — winding up together in the end. So here are three alternatives to comfort you this Feb 14. Each novel is just the right length to read in a single night with a box of drugstore-bought chocolates. And although these tales are indeed reflections on love, the characters they follow are skeptics. Whether or not their heroes succeed romantically, they will make you embrace the idea of going at it alone on a day when we feel nothing but pressure to pair up.

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Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day for many, a day of hearts and kisses, chocolates and cards. But author Alex Gilvarry sounds like he isn't exactly thrilled. If you're like him, he's got some reading material for you. It's for our series Three Books, in which authors recommend three books on one theme.

ALEX GILVARRY: For those who find themselves alone this Valentine's Day, or who reject the holiday altogether, you might not want to read about star-crossed lovers pining for each other, and even worse, winding up together in the end. So here are three alternatives to comfort you this February 14th. And although these tales are indeed reflections on love, the characters they follow are skeptics. Whether or not their heroes succeed romantically, they will make you embrace the idea of going at it alone on a day when we feel nothing but pressure to pair up.

"Ladies' Man" by Richard Price chronicles one week in the life of Kenny Becker, a young door-to-door salesman who throws away his stagnant, albeit loving, relationship with his amateur-singer girlfriend, La Donna. Kenny is the living, breathing definition of a sex addict, and when he banishes La Donna from his life, he is left to his own lascivious devices. It's a story of a lonely, depraved Valentine's week in New York City circa 1978. The reader follows Kenny as he moves through an underworld of cheap sex and empty feelings. For anyone familiar with Price's tough-talking, criminal-investigation novels, this earlier one will delight you with its rapid-fire one-liners and offbeat humor.

"Cassandra at the Wedding" by Dorothy Baker is the tragicomic tale of Cassandra Edwards. She's a Berkeley grad student who returns to her family's California ranch to attend her twin sister's wedding. Cassandra is the type of heroine who may decide to stop at a roadside bar for vodka or make drunken calls from a pay phone. This classic weekend-wedding setup is a tipsy comedy of manners and rumination on love's ultimate unfairness. Cassandra sets out, intent on sabotaging her sister's marriage with sly insults and a fistful of pills.

Because the sisterly bond Cassandra once had with Judith is now threatened, her world comes spiraling down, and we can't help but watch her fall. And it's her faults, her coy, everywoman on the verge of proper adulthood that will comfort you through the night.

"Miss Lonelyhearts," Nathanael West's classic short novel is the story of a newspaper columnist - a man who receives letters of heartbreak from the city's desperate souls. He comforts them in his weekly column, offering not only advice about love, but solace and escape from their depressed and unfortunate lives. But Miss Lonelyhearts himself may be one of the most desperate, an unsatisfied man searching for meaning in what he sees as a morally bankrupt city.

West's novel is also a brilliant period piece of Depression-era New York. Set in speakeasies and newsrooms, and its hero is one tainted by love's darker side - the affairs, the broken engagements - and its ultimate failure to bring about true happiness.

So whatever your pleasure on this most Hallmark of holidays - the comedic sex-capades of an addict, the redemption of a California gal or a peek into love's dark past - I hope you find consolation in one of these truly memorable blue valentines.

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SIEGEL: Alex Gilvarry is the author of a book called "From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant." For more Three Books suggestions, you can go to the book section of our website, npr.org.

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